


Water Wings and Noodles

by tsukinofaerii



Series: Learning to Swim [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Multi, Unplanned Pregnancy, Werewolf Biology, ultrasounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:48:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Allison's pregnancy come some big changes—some of them bigger than Stiles had anticipated, bigger than he's sure any of them can handle. The good news is, they don't have to do it alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Water Wings and Noodles

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been bouncing around for a while, and I've finally admitted that it's not going to get any more done or polished. I have zero experience with pregnancy, though I did my best with research.

"Tape the bottom, don't just fold. Everything will fall out if you do." 

Stiles looked up at Allison from her throne of pillows on his bed. She looked back, eyebrows raised, queen and experienced box packer. Somewhere she'd found a fairy wand and was using it to direct the packing. There'd been a matching crown, but Scott had stolen it on his last trip downstairs and hadn't come back yet. 

Sighing, Stiles emptied the box, unfolded the flaps and put them back together with the packing tape, and then started filling it again. It was the third time he'd forgotten, and there'd probably be a fourth. He hadn't moved once since he'd been first brought home from the hospital. There were still places on the walls where shadows of dancing animals were visible. 

The window unit air conditioner rattled threateningly, giving that little sputter that meant it was about to go from chilly to frozen wasteland. His bedroom was a controlled disaster of piles, boxes and bags. Every piece of furniture with a flat surface was covered in something, even if that something was glitter left over from prom. 

Since they'd already agreed to give the family thing a go, it made sense to just spend the rest of the summer _there_ , rather than pretending they weren't spending five nights out of the week together anyway. Still, stuffing boxes put a twitch in Stiles' gut that was hard to ignore. It felt a lot like he was packing away his childhood, trading in his X-Box for a set of someone else's Legos. Which was really stupid, since his X-box was going with him. Feelings didn't like listening to logic, though.

Allison's stuff had been the easiest to move; she'd spent from year one to year seventeen of her life packing up and moving across the country. The two pre-college years she'd had in Beacon Hills hadn't been enough time to collect a large amount of anything that wasn't considered a deadly weapon.

In contrast, Stiles had stuff. Lots and lots of _stuff_ , because he'd never moved in his life and never had any reason to prune the clutter. His bedroom had been his playroom and nursery. Most of his useful and daily items had already been packed for college, since he'd never bothered to unpack after coming home for the summer. Of that, about ninety-five percent of it had already been migrated to Derek's by accident or design. 

Both he and Allison had developed drawers and closets of their own, organically grown by dedicated forgetfulness and Derek's tender confession of, _Yeah, sure, whatever. I think there's room in that one, just stuff it in_. It was such a non-issue that it took Stiles six days before he realized he hadn't needed to return home for clean underwear in a while because his underwear drawer had trekked the dark abyss and landed square in the middle of Allison and Derek's. That was the kind of revelation that could mess with a guy's head.

He was just glad his dad had been called in to cover for someone at the last second. Stiles wasn't sure he could do relationship feelings and family feelings simultaneously yet. 

"Why are you supervising again?" Stiles asked, stuffing the last piece of padding in and folding—not taping, _ha_ —the lid closed. The sharpie he'd been allowed to keep—singular sharpie, because adulthood meant nothing—came out, and he scrawled _LACROSSE STUFF_ on the side in giant letters. "You could at least label something."

Allison shrugged. "I offered to help. You're the one who said no." Her wand described an arc through the air, circling around to bop in the direction of his head. "I'm _working for two_ , if you remember. And then Derek said that I shouldn't do anything too strenuous until the ultrasound confirms everything's okay."

"And you listened to us? You don't even _look_ pregnant yet," he grumbled. It was actually true. When they had naked time, which was a lot of the time, Stiles kind of thought he could see a bit of a bump, but there wasn't much of one yet. And unlike Derek he couldn't hear or smell the changes going on that weren't immediately obvious. "You should stop taking my advice. You know better than to listen to me." 

She stuck out her tongue and waved the wand threateningly. "Don't make me banish you to the closet."

"I think the closet stopped being an option a loooooong time ago." Scott leaned in the doorway, his arms loaded down with a sheaf of new boxes to be taped, filled and loaded into the U-Haul in the drive. His bright pink and purple crown had fallen askew somewhere on his trip, and was cocked rakishly over one eye. "How did you get so much stuff? It's just one room!"

"A lifetime of memories, Scotty boy." It took some fishing, but eventually Stiles found a discarded probably-clean roll of socks under the desk to lob at Scott's head. 

Because Scott was a dirty werewolf cheater, he ducked easily, and the socks bounced harmlessly off into the hall. It didn't even brush his crown. "VHS Star Wars tapes aren't memories. You don't even have a VHS player."

"One day, you are going to watch them, and you are going to watch the originals, not that remastered shit, so help me—"

Scott might have dodged the socks, but he wasn't fast enough to miss one of Allison's pillows. It nailed him right in the face, sending his crown crashing down. He staggered, clutching his chest before slumping into dramatic death slump against Stiles' books. A second later, his leg twitched. The crown rolled to a stop by Stiles' knee, glittering with plastic jewels.

He scooped it up, tripping over to offer it up to Allison on mostly-bended knee. "My lady, your kingdom is restored."

She plopped a loud, smacking kiss to Stiles' cheek. "I'm still probably going to exile you." 

"Hey!" Stiles tried to take back the crown, but Allison snatched it before he could, settling it delicately atop the knot of braids and curls that she'd twisted her hair up into. Her wand tapped against his shoulder, the sparkly star letting out a buzzing tinkle with every touch. 

"Back to work, Sirrah, or I'll have the wolf eat you for lunch." 

"I thought that was Derek's job." 

Behind him, corpse-Scott groaned and flailed over, covering his eyes. "No one is getting eaten while I'm here! Ever!" By now, the protest was more rote than honest, but he still made a good show scowling. Scowl was not an expression that came naturally to Scott. Stiles appreciated the effort. 

He showed it by throwing another pillow. 

Scott batted it out of the air and flipped over, eyes flashing yellow. In one smooth leap, he'd crossed the room and was tackling Stiles off the edge of the bed. Allison yelped somewhere above, and the comforter she'd been sitting on flipped over his and Scott's heads. The world went dark, other than the glow of Scott's eyes as he pounced. 

They rolled, thumping up against furniture, abandoned shoes and once some long-abandoned homework that skidded under Stiles' knee and nearly broke his nose on the floor. He turned the fall into a flip onto his back, finding a break in the blanket and slipping sideways under the bed. Scott reached for him, but Stiles pushed all the way back against the wall. Dust clogged his nose and throat, making it hard to breathe, much less laugh. He managed both somehow, cackling at Scott's helpless flailing to free himself from the blanket.

"Stop—stop!" Allison ordered from the mattress above. She sounded close to tears, her voice all clogged from laughing. "Hold still for a second." The lump that was Scott stopped thrashing, and then Allison's hands and feet appeared as she tried to help Scott free. 

A little bit of light shined down between the edge of the bed and the wall. Shadows danced as Allison moved, shuffling what was left of the sheets around. Something was wedged between the mattress and the headboard, an immobile chunk of rectangular shadow. 

Trying not to breathe in the dust bunnies, Stiles shuffled himself around and reached up. The thing turned out to be an old paperback sci-fi novel. Its pages bent and twisted from having survived in its nook for who knew how long, and the cover was nearly torn in half. 

He huffed a laugh, then huffed again when it sent a clog of dust up his nose and cracked it open. Surprisingly, it was still pretty legible. A few pages were loose, but nothing seemed missing. If he squinted and angled it right, he could make out that the title was _C—something—ling Star_ , with the usual picture of a generic spaceship and a half-naked lady screaming while floating in the vacuum.

Stiles had just started skimming the opening paragraphs when his only source of light vanished. Allison and Scott peered down at him through the crack, their shadowy expressions just a lot judgey.

"Did the bed eat you?" Allison asked. "We haven't dealt with evil furniture in a while, but I think I still have some of that polish Deaton made."

"It wasn't evil, it was possessed," Stiles corrected, but he closed the book with a loud sigh. Twisting, he angled himself so his feet stuck out the open end of the bed. "I just found something, that's all. Pull me out?"

A pair of hands each grabbed his ankles and hauled. Stiles' shirt rucked up across his shoulders, and the carpet left a low-level burn on his back that was nearly as bad as the beard burn Stiles was slowly starting to get used to. Still, he emerged victorious into the sunlight, holding the book up in the air as a trophy.

Allison plucked it right from his hands. 

He whined pitifully, reaching for his stolen prize with pathetic flailing. "My book!" 

"You can read it later," she said primly, sitting down on the edge of the bed and folding her legs. With her bare feet, long shirt and stretchy leggings she looked like she was about to do some strange form of bedroom yoga. "Back to work."

Stiles made a face and stayed flat on his back. From the angle he was at, she was mostly a pair of knees and a chin. "You're totally going to read it, aren't you?" he accused, glaring up at her. 

She smiled serenely and cracked it open, making the pages rustle. "If you're good, I won't spoil it for you."

His mouth dropped open in shock. It only lasted a second before Stiles' instincts took over, and he did what he always did when the going got too tough: looked for backup. "Hey, Scott, could you—"

Both of Scott's hands came up in the universal sign of surrender. "Leave me out of it."

"But—" Stiles started to whine, and Scott cut him off. 

"It's your own fault. You like the mean ones." He picked up an empty box and dropped it on Stiles' stomach. "Come on, we're almost done anyway." 

Stiles' eyes narrowed. He almost wanted to say that Allison hadn't been mean when she'd been with _Scott_ , but that was something they Did Not Talk About. "You're not supposed to be right about stuff like that. When did—"

Allison made a cooing sound and pointedly rustled the pages. "Hey, Stiles, did you know the main character has a—"

Grabbing the box, Stiles scrambled upright and started grabbing things to shove into it. "I'm going, I'm going!"

She laughed cruelly, and Stiles would never, ever tell her that it made him smile into his box like a goofball. That was between him and his cardboard bro.

* * *

The last box slid into place with a mighty heavy that left Stiles planted face-down on Derek's hardwood floors. They were nice and cool, and he was close enough to the air conditioning that it bounced across his sweat-soaked back. "Just leave me here to die," he groaned, flopping his hand weakly. "Save yourself." 

Allison laughed. There were two taps of shoes on wood, and then she was kneeling over the small of his back and rubbing it gently. "Poor baby," she cooed. "You could have waited for Scott and Derek."

"They can do the donation run," Stiles grumbled and arched into her hands. She had great hands. They weren't as big or strong as Derek's, but archery had left her fingers talented as Hell. He didn't mind taking advantage of it, at least until Allison was the one who needed backrubs. 

It would have been nice to know exactly when that would be, along with all the other things he kind of suspected were coming but couldn't specifically count. The internet was no help; all it said was that every pregnancy is different and to _listen to your body_. Stiles didn't want to listen to his body to figure things out, that was what the internet was supposed to be for. 

The flat of Allison's hands ran up his spine to his shoulders. She leaned down to press against him, apparently not minding that he was sticky with sweat. Her hands kept working at his shoulders, digging in to smooth out the knots from a hard day's labor. "You should stretch. Keep moving. You're going to knot up." 

Stiles snorted. "I thought that was Derek's thing."

"Derek's not going to be doing any knotting on you if you can't move," she shot back serenely. "You'll just have to watch while we have fun without you."

He hummed, shuffling a little sideways to direct her hands to a specific spot. "I can think of worse things." 

"Voyeur." Allison dug her thumbs into the problem spot, making him simultaneously groan and melt into a puddle. "You're sure you don't want to come to dinner? My dad's making _cordon bleu_."

"As much as I love meat stuffed with more meat, I think I'll pass." With a strength of will dug up from the depths of his soul, Stiles wiggled himself over enough to look at her from the corner of his eye. "Do you really want me or Derek around your father right now, with the ultrasound coming up and everything?"

Allison made a face that said she agreed, but had needed to offer. And Stiles did appreciate it. He just appreciated not being perforated more. Chris Argent had been a little too easy with the idea of shooting Stiles before the whole pregnancy thing. It was probably safer just not to chance. 

"I'll be fine. Promise." He twisted up, feeling something in his back go _pop_ as he stretched to kiss her cheek. "Derek'll be back around seven. I won't starve to death."

"That's debatable," she muttered, but kissed his cheek in return, leaning down to wrap her arms around him. Stiles flattened himself against the floor and relaxed, enjoying the moment. 

The thing with easy affection, affection that wasn't going to lead directly into sex, was still pretty new. None of them had taken a dip in mermaid water in a while, but it turned out their libidos didn't need much help. The constant, itching drive to do something with his dick had just become more manageable. 

Eventually, the clock ticked over to the next hour with a happy beep. Allison sighed and kissed the back of his neck. "I'd better get going. You're sure you'll be fine?"

"One hundred thousand percent positive."

She laughed and kissed him again, then climbed to her feet. He didn't look up, but he heard the pad of her feet, and a jingle of keys. Her feet appeared in the corner of his eye, clad in a pair of cheap flip-flops. Cordon bleu or not, her dad wasn't getting the Allison Argent Special Treatment. "Give Derek a kiss for me. I won't be out too late."

Stiles threw a thumbs up in the direction he thought the door was. "Look for you down by the dive bars in Warren, bring a stomach pump, got it."

" _I'm_ not the one who can't hold my liquor." 

"You're just the one who's not supposed to be drinking." 

"Sure, hold that against the pregnant woman." One of Allison's toes nudged his ribs. "Be good while I'm gone." 

"Woof." 

She laughed again, and her shoes vanished. A second later, he heard the door close.

Closing his eyes, Stiles took a moment to breathe. He felt like he was in some sort of artsy drama flick that was being acted out on the set of a horror flick. A coming of age thing, but instead of drugs there were werewolves, and instead of an estranged father there were a lot of dead people. The accidental pregnancy was spot-on, though. 

The air conditioning kicked on again, brushing a cool path across Stiles' skin. He'd dried enough that it was less of a shock, but still pretty cold. Grumbling, he made himself sit up, stiff muscles protesting their abuse. 

His pile of boxes was depressingly small, after all the work they'd put in. A lot of his things had ended up staying in the u-haul, and would be dropped off at a donation place. Other stuff was staying with his dad—little league lacrosse trophies, most of his pictures, all the knickknacks that weren't deemed too weird or personal to be left in a guest bedroom.

That was more depressing than the boxes—his room, the guest bedroom. It made a little ball of sickness swish around in his stomach to think about. But that was the choice he'd made, and it was a good choice. The right choice. Stiles wasn't always sure when he was doing the right thing—that was what he had Scott for—but he was sure about this thing.

He just kind of wished he didn't feel like he was jumping off a cliff and praying there'd be water to catch him. 

"Okay, Stiles, no more of that," he told himself sternly, aloud because no one would hear, and even if anyone did they should probably know what they were getting into anyway. "If you keep this up, you're going to start writing bad poetry in a book with a skull on the cover." 

Which actually didn't sound too bad. The book, not the poetry. Stiles knew his limits, and they started at grocery lists and stopped at essay format. He'd leave the _using prose to bare the depths of the soul_ stuff to Boyd.

Wincing a little more with every tug of his muscles, Stiles pushed himself to his feet. There was root beer in the fridge, along with actual beer and some sort of tea that smelled like strawberries. He helped himself to that, along with a package of crackers to hold him over until Derek got off shift. Technically speaking, he was capable of cooking, but Derek's kitchen was still _Derek's kitchen_. It was going to take some time to get his mind around that. 

Allison had left the book he'd found on the kitchen counter next to Isaac's latest letter from France, the bag of candy they'd unearthed—recent candy, only a couple weeks old, none of that Christmas 2010 stuff—and the remainder of their water bottles. Stiles juggled his food into his elbow and picked it up, flipping it around to read the back. He'd forgotten about it after the first spark of interest, but it was a book, which meant it was something to do that involved neither unpacking nor the pregnancy website laden internet. 

It didn't really look like the sort of book he'd have picked up; it was some mess about space marines coming back from the dead and apocalypses, which were a lot less fun to read about when you'd been in life-threatening situations before. Like all good geeks, he'd gone through a Douglas Adams phase, a Star Trek phase and a Star Wars phase. Sci-Fi outside that had never really managed to keep his attention. When life kept throwing werewolves, mermaids and zombied old men around, it was hard to give a damn about space marines. His best friend could do all of that, _and_ still had to pass chemistry. 

Still, a book was a book. He flopped onto the couch and stretched out, stuffing three crackers in his face until his cheeks puffed out, and started reading.

* * *

The next few days Allison and Stiles spent essentially nesting. Neither of them would admit that they were doing it, but Stiles was pretty sure they'd all accepted it. Scott brought over a book on baby feng shui, and Allison found blueprints of Derek's loft some somewhere in the depths of the internet. Stiles made lists of lists.

The three of them planted themselves in the main room, arranging and rearranging things, talking about color schemes and decorations and furniture and drawing up plans for how the hell they were going to manage anything ever again. No one wanted to have anything to do with the guest bedroom upstairs part of the loft where they'd all nearly died that one time (fucking possessed furniture), but they wanted to have a baby bed next to giant sunrise-catching windows even less. When they got desperate, they even took a furtive dip into the Babies'R'Us website before giving up in overwhelmed pink-and-blue horror and agreed to just ask Melissa for help.

Derek went to work, came home to a new and exciting disaster every day, and was usually nice enough not to do more than roll his eyes and shove Scott out the door. Stiles' contribution to the peace was that he tried very hard not to make jokes about being Derek's kept trophy spouses. He didn't always succeed, but someone in kindergarten had told him that the effort was what counted, and he'd ride that pony until it died of old age.

All in all, it was disgustingly domestic and comfortable and normal. Which meant that Stiles actually wasn't surprised when visitors showed up on the day of Allison's first ultrasound appointment. Or, more accurately, Stiles woke up with Erica sitting on his chest and her claws tapping against his bare collarbone. 

"Good morning," she chirruped brightly. "So, how's _your_ summer been?"

Stiles meeped and tried to look down at Erica's claws without moving and giving her a reason to use them. Not that Erica would. Probably. She hadn't actually hurt him since the thing with the harpies, and that had been mostly an accident.

Allison was rolled over to the side of the bed, propped up on her elbow and smiling in amusement. She was in a loose blue pajama top, which was a little upsetting since Stiles distinctly remembered kicking her clothes under the edge of the bed the night before. When he looked over at her for help, she just smiled wider.

He was pretty sure he'd been set up. 

"Oh, you know," Stiles managed to squeeze out. "Nothing special." 

"Nothing special?" The very tips of her claws dug in. She tilted her head, golden curls brushing her cheeks from their new shorter cut. "Is nothing special why you're in Derek's bed?"

"Um." He swallowed hard. "That's a trick question, isn't it? And aren't you supposed to be taking summer classes right now?"

"Erica, let him go." Boyd settled on the edge of the bed, nudging his worser half aside with his shoulder. She rolled over with a thump, dropping down into the space Allison had left behind. "Express session. We're done with them. The pack felt weird, so we figured we'd come spend a couple weeks at home."

"Derek didn't tell us anything," Erica added, sounding somewhere between gleeful and hurt. Her claws tapped against Stiles' chest again, sparkling with the remnants of her now-ruined manicure. "You have toothbrushes here." 

"And the rest of our stuff," Allison said from the other side of Erica. "Derek's not off shift until tonight. Breakfast? Stiles makes good pancakes. And sausage. Bacon. Steak?" She shot Stiles a hopeful, hungry look that he was finally starting to parse as _food_ rather than _sex_. As far as he knew, she hadn't been affected by morning sickness yet, so he was grateful for that much, but she was starting to eat more meat than a werewolf. Fortunately, he had just enough common sense not to point that out. 

On a list of Stiles' favorite things, uninterrupted breathing was at the very top. Not that Allison would hurt him, but there was a long line of people behind her with bunkers of weapons and a distinct lack of inhibitions when it came to violence. Better safe than bleeding, that was Stiles' motto. Sometimes.

Grumbling, he pushed at Erica's knees until she finally climbed off him and onto Boyd. "Someone pass me my boxers. They should be on the floor, along with my dignity."

Boyd snorted, but leaned over sideways to fish around under the edge of the bed. He came up with the red-blue fish boxers Stiles had abandoned the night before, dropping them onto his face. "Don't be stupid. You don't have dignity." 

"I might have!" It took some wiggling, but Stiles managed to get himself half-dressed under the blankets. Not that he usually would mind—Boyd had seem him naked in the locker room a thousand times, and Allison was _Allison_ , but Erica would never give up that kind of power over him. They'd be ninety having wheel chair races across the nursing home lawn and she'd still be joking about the size of his dick.

True to expectations, Erica pouted dramatically when he squirmed into view with his junk safely hidden behind a cartoon carp. All three of them followed as he padded to the kitchen, hitting the on button the already-prepped coffee pot and starting to dig through the fridge. They always had meat, but _breakfast_ meat was a whole 'nother beast. 

Stiles tried hard not to think about how easily Derek's fridge was becoming their fridge. Down that road lay madness, or at least a panic attack.

One of the wooden bar stools scraped across the floor as Boyd took a position on the invisible demarcation between kitchen and dining area, with Erica draped over his shoulders like a preppy cardigan. "So, anyone want to explain why you two were naked in Derek's bed?" Boyd asked, reaching for the book Stiles had left on the counter. "And why no one told us about it?

"Well," Stiles started, unloading the fridge of its dairy bounty, "when three people think they're all really hot—"

"And there are mermaids breeding in a lake nearby," Allison added, brushing by Stiles to steal the first, ridiculously strong cup of coffee from the pot. No sugar, no creamer, just black as Derek tried to convince everyone his soul was. 

"And mermaids," he agreed, because really, if it hadn't been for that he doubted any of them would have been horny enough to try for it all. Pancake batter came together under his hand with only a little attention. He'd learned to make them years ago, when puberty meant four and a half meals a day and then a midnight snack sometimes. "And when condoms are really, stupidly easy to forget."

"And birth control fails." Allison took a deep sniff of the coffee before her first sip. Her groan was _exactly_ pornographic, which Boyd and Erica must have picked up on by the way their noses wrinkled. "So those people decide to just all move in together, since babies tend to skip you past the casual dating part of things." 

Erica sniffed pointedly in Allison's direction. Her shoulders straightened, and her face did something strange that Stiles couldn't quite read. "Congratulations or condolences?" 

"Congratulations, so far." A tiny smile curved the edge of Allison's mouth, and Stiles just _had_ to kiss it on his way back to find the second frying pan for the bacon. Boyd rolled his eyes eloquently without quite taking them off the book, but Stiles could see the way his heel bumped back against Erica's shins. It was all weirdly nice and domestic, and Stiles wondered when the warm fuzzies would fade. 

He kind of hoped it was never.

"So," Stiles started, dragging the vowel out like the distraction it was. He flicked the switches on the stove and positioned his pans for maximum cooking capacity. The sooner breakfast was done, the less of a chance of anyone going cannibal. "We've got an ultrasound appointment today. I hope you've got something else planned because you're not invited."

The two of them looked at each other. Erica grinned.

* * *

Stiles wasn't actually sure if extra people were allowed for an ultrasound. The nurses and people he saw around didn't seem to think so, but no one said anything definite about rules. What he was sure of was that he pitied anyone who had tried to tell that to Allison. Her glare was the stuff that countries signed treaties agreeing not to do to each other.

Regardless of how it happened, though, Stiles was squeezed shoulder to shoulder with Chris Argent, Erica and Boyd crowded in behind him, in a room that was probably meant for three people tops. Allison was stretched out with her shirt shoved up under her breasts while getting goo rubbed on her slightly less than flat stomach. The elderly Spanish lady that Melissa swore by was kind, explaining everything in warm, professional tones to her rapt audience of bystanders and Allison. 

She didn't question the three extra people in the room. Stiles was incredibly grateful for that. 

Everything could only have been made more awkward if Derek had been able to make it. For one, there was absolutely no space for another person. For two, Stiles liked not being brutally savaged outside of very specific contexts, and Chris was still having trouble with the furry side of the Stilinski-Argent-Hale trio. Luckily for both of those reasons, Derek hadn't been able to find anyone to cover his shift at the hospital. Stiles couldn't imagine anything good coming of locking Derek and Chris together in a very small room while they were being presented with incontrovertible evidence of exactly what Allison was doing in her spare time. 

Deep down where only the darkest of suspicions late, Stiles was positive that Chris secretly hoped the baby was actually his. It was weird, even in Stiles' own head, that someone would think of him as the lesser of two evils. He'd spent too much time being the devil on Scott's shoulder for that to really be familiar. Someone else was always the good choice, met with cheek pinches and smiles. Stiles was the one that made nice people go pale and try to back out of their solemn vow to chaperon whatever field trip or dance it was. 

"Okay, Allison," the gynecologist—Dr. Something Velazquez, if Stiles remembered right—said, with admirable calm for a woman who had Chris Argent glaring bullets at her, "all you need to do is breathe normally. You're a little later than usual for a first sonogram, but it should be fine. Just try to relax." 

One of Allison's hands fumbled out blindly, her eyes locked on the still-dark screen. Instinctively, Stiles reached for it. His knuckles slammed into Chris's with a bone-jarring _crack_. 

They froze. The gynecologist froze. Probably even people out in the parking lot froze and didn't know why. It was an awkward moment, was what Stiles was getting at. Behind him, Stiles felt Erica tense, the flat of her claws pressing against his back in either a promise or a threat. With Erica, it could even be both. Boyd made a noise that was suspiciously close to the crunch of impending facial rearrangement. The only person who didn't notice the sudden spike in homicidal tension was Allison, who obviously had more important things on her mind. 

After a minute of stare down, Chris let a wide, toothy smile that Stiles usually saw on things that were actively trying to eat him, and gestured Stiles forward. His hand slapped down on Stiles' shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a comforting move. All it did was remind Stiles of the many, many species of predators that hobbled their prey before moving in for the kill. 

Swallowing, Stiles reached past Chris and wrapped his hand around Allison's. She tore her eyes away from the monitor to give him a quick, nervous smile and a squeeze. He smiled back, because it was really that or throw up, and Allison was supposed to be the one dealing with that stuff.

The gynecologist rolled her shoulders, pulled out a wand, and started rubbing it on Allison's gooey belly. Stiles knew what it was, because he'd spent hours and hours researching exactly what to expect for everything from this down to the dangers of an epidural that Allison wouldn't even need because thank God for werewolves. But his mind was completely blank, because the previously black screen wasn't anymore. It was gray and darker gray and—

" _Holy shit_ ," Erica breathed against his neck. "Are those—"

"Looks like triplets," Dr. Velazquez announced, way too calmly. She hummed, leaning in to look at the screen. "Multiples seem to be going around lately. Sometimes you get surges like this. Strange, but true." 

Allison's hand was nearly killing Stiles', and he didn't even care because there were three tiny smudges on the screen that were almost definitely—no, _were definitely_ babies. Three babies, and the lady was talking about seeing their hearts and limbs, but Stiles couldn't hear any of it because _babies_. He really _was_ going to be sick. It would be the least manly thing he'd ever done, but at least it would be happy vomit.

Then the doctor paused, and her hum turned more serious. She shifted the paddle thing on Allison's stomach, and then hummed again. Immediately, all of them went still. 

"What is it?" Chris demanded, and Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin because he'd totally forgotten the man was there. 

Boyd growled, more a vibration than a noise. Stiles appreciated the backup. It said a lot about his life that a promise of violence was comforting. 

"I don't want to alarm you," the doctor said, because there was no faster way to alarm people than by telling them not to be, "but there appear to be some... abnormalities. Here." One of her fingers came up to trace something that, if Stiles squinted, looked more human than jellybean. Almost. "You can see, the shape of the skull is slightly off. But I'm more concerned about the spine, here." Her finger slid down the image. "These two almost look like they have tails. Some children _are_ born with vestigial tails, but these are more developed than we'd usually see at this stage, even in cases like that."

Stiles' stomach dropped all the way down to his knees. Allison's hand in his turned into a vice, anchoring them both. They looked at each other, and Stiles could make out the exact second that their brains hit the same _oh shit_ wavelength. 

Coincidentally, it was the moment that Chris decided to squeezed down on his shoulder even harder, fingers digging in like he could sense that Stiles was about to scoop Allison up and bolt for freedom. "There must be some mistake," he said, but Velazquez just shook her head.

"It seems very clear," she explained, voice calm but with an edge of pity that set Stiles' teeth to grinding. "We'll have to make an appointment for a more in-depth ultrasound to be certain, but—" 

Allison was already swinging herself off the table and tugging her shirt down. It clung to her slick stomach obscenely, but it didn't stop her. "Yeah, we'll give you a call," she said. At no point did she let go of Stiles' hand, dragging him down and around with her like her personal cuddle toy. She yanked him out of her father's hold, wrenching his shoulder in the process. Stiles yelped and tried to check the new injury, but Allison just tugged him around the exam table. 

Light from the hallway flooded the room as Erica and Boyd threw open the door, positioning themselves so there was a clear path to escape. Allison grabbed her purse from Boyd, dragging Stiles out the door so fast there was an actual danger of whiplash.

"Ms. Argent," the doctor called, "I know this is—"

"Sorry, have to run!" Allison hauled Stiles down the hall with her, the two werewolves shuffling them all along. Behind them, he heard her dad making excuses to the doctor. Not that it mattered. No one was going to think anything other than that Allison had seen complications coming up and panicked.

Which, okay, Stiles would give them that. But he kind of thought _werewolves_ were an allowable complication to freak out over. 

They hit the waiting room at a trot, and Erica leaped ahead to hold open the door. As soon as the sunshine hit their faces, Allison tightened her grip and fell into a full-on sprint for the Jeep. "Keys out, we've got to get going!" she yelled, letting go to swing around to the passenger side. "Move, move, move!" 

"What the _hell_ , Allison?" Stiles shouted back, but he was already fumbling for the keys in his pocket. He nearly dropped them three times before managing to get them into the lock. Behind them, their werewolf bodyguards positioned themselves in front of the door, arms crossed and _oh my god_ what was Stiles' life. 

"I'll explain once we're on the road." She jiggled the handle, then hopped up on the side like she was seriously considering just hanging on while they made their getaway. "No time to—"

" _Allison Lynnette Argent_!" 

Allison dropped her head against the Jeep's hood. "Damn it." 

Chris came storming out of the clinic, face bright red, trending maroon. He tried to pushed past the blockade, but fell back when neither Erica nor Boyd would budge. "Is there anything you want to tell me, young lady?"

In one smooth drop, Allison hopped off the side of the Jeep and turned around, arms crossed. "Nothing that's any of your business," she said, chin up, back stiff. The few other people in sight were watching the drama unfold with open fascination. "Stiles, start the car." 

But Stiles was already stepping away from the driver's side door and edged around the Jeep, hands up in surrender. Better, in his experience, to give up _before_ the guns came out. It meant that he'd have more time to run while they were being reached for. Still, it would have been nice if he'd known which Argent to be more afraid of. "Would someone like to tell _me_ what's going on, then?" he asked plaintively. 

"Excellent point, Stiles," Chris said, baring his teeth. No one would have ever mistaken it for a smile. "Tell him, Allison. It's _his_ business. Isn't it?"

Her shoulders lifted, and for a second Stiles honestly thought she was going to go for one of the weapons he knew was stashed on her somewhere. Then they deflated. One of Allison's hands came up, and the Werewolf Curtain reluctantly parted to let Chris through. He crossed the parking lot with a swagger that Stiles recognized as only half bullshit. Boyd followed close behind, while Erica moved a few steps ahead, casually blocking Chris from getting too close. 

"Well?" Chris demanded, setting in a full five feet away, which was as close as Erica would let him get.

"Werewolf offspring in the womb tend to take the same shape that their parent was in at the time of conception," Allison explained to Stiles stiffly. "Human, beta, or..." The corners of her mouth lifted in a hard little smile as she stared her father in the eye challengingly. "Full wolf."

Erica's eyes went wide in surprise. "I know they say blondes have more fun, but _damn_ girl." She glanced over at Boyd speculatively. "Hey, do you think—"

He just made a face. "I'm not becoming an alpha, so don't even."

"Spoil sport." 

Stiles ignored them and lowered his hands, processing the new information. It made... okay absolutely no sense at all, but. Werewolves. One day he was going to give up asking for logical conclusions to these things. "Do I want to know how hunters know so much about werewolf reproduction?"

"Probably not." 

He nodded, accepting that as truth. 

"Don't any of you know what this means?" Chris had apparently reached the end of his chronically short rope. "What they've _done_?"

"Dude, I was there for some of it. Well aware of what it means, don't knock it until you've tried it." Stiles eased closer until he was shoulder to shoulder with Allison. He touched the small of her back, a little bit of comfort where Chris wouldn't see it. "We'll work with it. Specialty doctors. Borrowing hospital equipment. Traumatizing Scott. Whatever it takes." 

A whole range of thoughts and emotions were clearly visible on Chris' face, starting with disgust, passing through rage and ending with _really_ enraged. "No," he said flatly. "You're not doing this. I won't—"

He cut off as a clawed hand wrapped casually around his shoulder. "Think very carefully before you finish that sentence," Boyd said quietly, eyes glinting yellow. 

Anger vibrated through Allison like a physical thing—Stiles could feel it clench her muscles, making her shake. "I gave you your choice, Dad. I've already made mine." Turning on her heel, Allison faced the Jeep. "Let's go, Stiles. Guys, can you hold him until we're gone?" 

"We've got this." Erica's hand waved, claws just starting to peek through. "Go." 

Hurriedly, Stiles ran back around to the driver's side, leaned across to pop the manual lock on the other door. Chris stood back, silent, while they buckled in and started up. Stiles didn't look to see if he watched them drive away, but he wouldn't have been surprised by it.

* * *

Stiles gave Allison ten minutes after they got back to the empty loft to fume. He shot Scott and Derek a quick text—got news, ttyl—and then kept busy making a protein-heavy lunch. No one had outright _said_ the future mother of baby werewolves needed a lot of meat, but he wasn't adverse to feeding her cravings. Leftover steak burritos seemed like they would cut it, with plain greek yogurt instead of sour cream and every sort of vegetable he could find that was burrito friendly.

But when he set the plate on the coffee table in front of Allison, she didn't reach for it. Didn't even look up. Not good. Not good at _all_. 

He wished Lydia had been able to stay for more than a few days, or that Erica had come with them. This was probably a girl thing. Stiles didn't have nearly enough experience with girl things. Or maybe it was an Argent thing, which could only be about a thousand times more complicated. The only other person around with experience dealing with Argent things was the person causing the problem. 

Since he couldn't exactly just leave her to stew, Stiles slid in beside her on the sofa, bumping their knees together to get her attention, casually making the plate rattle. _Smooth as Stilinski, yeah._ "You wanna talk about it?" 

"I..." Allison bit her lip, dark curls bouncing around her face as she shook her head. "I don't kno— _oh_ , food! Did you..?" She was already reaching for the plate, peeking in the tortilla to check it's contents before taking a giant bite.

"Thought you might be hungry." He bumped their knees again. It had seemed to work the first time. "What did you mean, you gave your dad his choice?"

Her mouth pulled to the side, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk's. She finished chewing and swallowed, licking a bit of yogurt from the corner of her mouth. "When I told him the news, I... I kind of also told him I'm the head of the family, and he has to listen to me." 

There was a silent _or_ there. Stiles raised his eyebrows and waited. She nibbled on the edges of the burrito, careful not to let any of the contents fall to the plate. It was the most dedicated, intricate burrito eating he'd seen in a while, and completely a stalling tactic. Stiles could wait her out, though. He'd waited out professional avoiders in his time.

It took her about half of the burrito before she finally swallowed, lowered her eyes and said, "If he doesn't do what I say, he can leave the family. I guess a cousin did it a few years before I was born. Changed his name and left. No one talks about him much anymore."

"Allison..." Carefully, Stiles wrapped his arm around her, squeezing her opposite shoulder. He could feel a strap there. Hopefully it was her bra and not a holster. "Do you think he would do that?"

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "I don't know. You know about... My mom. This is worse, isn't it? That I chose this?" Her voice started getting thick with impending tears, but she still took another bite. Food had definitely been a good tactic. Stiles would have to remember it. 

He rubbed her shoulder comfortingly as he could manage. There were probably a dozen answers to that, and none of them would help, so he picked the least harmful one of the bunch. "He's got to make his own decisions. But we'll be here for you no matter what. You know that, right?"

She turned a tight, watery smile on him and leaned in to peck a kiss to his lips. It tasted like guacamole and the steak rub Derek insisted on using. "Yeah. I know."

Stiles stole another kiss, until her eyes went soft and she was pressing into him. When it broke he breathed, "Want a distraction?"

A hint of a dimple showed in the curve of her cheek. It was as close as she'd come to smiling since they'd gotten to Derek's. "What did you have in mind?"

He kissed her again, gently laying her back into the ugly blue cushions of Derek's couch. Allison let herself be stretched out, watching him with an extra sheen to her eyes that made his stomach do flips. Stiles' hands ran down her, across her shoulders and breasts to her hips, up over the little bulge of her belly under her shirt. There was still goo on her skin from the ultrasound where they hadn't stopped to wash it off. Stiles scraped his nails over where it had started to dry, getting a giggle and squirm. 

"Tickles," Allison whined, squirming to get a knee up. She looped her arms over his shoulders, biting at his ear when he nosed her neck. 

"Where was your sympathy for tickling last week?" But he changed to the flats of his palms, pushing up her shirt to show her bra. She'd started wearing stretchy things that Stiles wasn't sure even counted as underwear as much as tiny shirts, but they were easy to push out of the way, which he appreciated. The strap he'd felt earlier belonged to a tiny little knife that rode behind her shoulder. It came off easily enough, and immediately fulfilled the destiny of all tiny sharp objects by getting lost in the couch cushions. 

When he nuzzled her breast, Allison let out a soft little sigh and combed her fingers through his hair. Her skin was warm and faintly salty where he ran his tongue over it. There was a hint of something sweeter around the edge of her nipple that he couldn't place, but licking it made her hands clench in his hair. That was probably a good sign. For the sake of science, he did it again, and the grip turned to scratching while her hips rose up, grinding into his thigh with a little gasp. 

Definitely a good sign. Point one, Stilinski. 

Stiles lapped slowly at Allison's breast before his lips wrapped around the nipple, flicking it with the tip of his tongue. It seemed like he could do no wrong, which experience said was the direct opposite of the truth. He took his time, licking and sucking carefully, massaging the other breast with his palm until Allison started to make noises that he generally associated with impending violence against his person. Only then did he hook his fingers in the waist of her leggings and start to tug.

It took a second for Allison to get with the program, but once she did, she went all in. Her shoes hit the floor with rapid-fire _thuds_. Then she was arching up against Stiles to squirm free of her leggings and panties. They ended up thrown across the room to land on the screens around Derek's bed, hanging in an ode to debauchery.

Slipping down, Stiles kissed her hipbone, which was thankfully free of anything formerly slimy, then moved on to the fold her her hip and thigh. Allison tasted like sweat and sex on the tip of his tongue, dark and faintly musky. She was already wet, dark curls glistening, but he licked his fingers anyway before touching her. The tips of his fingers slid over the lips of her vulva, teasing them open delicately. 

A sweet, heady sound echoed in her chest, not quite a groan, not a whimper. Her heels caught the cushions, shoving them under his ass as she braced her legs wider. Stiles flailed forward, face nearly planting in her pussy. 

She laughed, fingers carding through his hair. "Well?" Allison rolled her hips up into his face, a wicked glint in her eye. "Since you're down there already."

Stiles snorted, deliberately dragging his cheek over her thigh to leave a faint burn. It wasn't nearly the kind of mark Derek could leave. If he were being honest with himself, he'd admit that he was kind of jealous of that. It was way too late to be honest with himself, anyway. "Am I being _managed_ , Ms. Argent?"

"I thought you were managing _me_." One of her fingers flicked his ear. "Or do I need to go get Derek for that?"

Delicately, Stiles curled his tongue and licked up the center of her. Allison shivered and fell back onto the couch cushions, groaning. "I don't think Derek will be necessary."

He set into his chosen task with a gusto that came from years of an oral fixation. His tongue worked around her cunt teasingly, flicking up to brush over her clit before sliding back down. The hand in his hair tightened when he hit somewhere sensitive, holding him there. Stiles let Allison guide him, hands firm and demanding, nails biting into his scalp.

She tasted a little different, sharper than he was used to, and she was definitely more sensitive. It took barely any time before her hands tightened and she was grinding against his mouth. Stiles dragged the flat of his tongue up her and rolled his eyes to see her face as she came. There was something amazing as hell about being between someone's thighs and watching the exact results of something _you_ did. 

Taking the chance, he reached down and adjusted his dick where it was trying to harden at a right angle in his jeans. "Distracted yet?" he asked, rubbing against Allison's other thigh. 

"I could be more distracted." Shoving him back, Allison crawled up, reversing their positions. Her hand curled around his crotch, rolling her palm against it. "Looking kind of uncomfortable there, Stiles." 

Air hissed between his teeth as he ground up, finding absolutely no friction. His jeans were too tight to be more than a jail for an abused cock. "Yeah, well, I'm a giver," he managed to get out between groans. 

Her free hand dived between the couch cushions, coming up with a neon pink zebra striped makeup bag that she unzipped to show was full of condoms and packets of lube. The other squeezed his dick again roughly, nearly making swallow his tongue. 

"Does that mean I'm a taker?"

"I hope so?" Stiles didn't have the blood flow to the brain for tact. All of it had gone due boner. 

Luckily, Allison just laughed and popped the button on his jeans, working it free with delicate precision. She unwrapped him like the worst sort of person at Christmas, the kind who unstuck the tape rather than just letting it rip. Just then, Stiles really could have done with being torn open. The _click-click-click_ of the zipper alone nearly killed him.

Rolling down his boxers, Allison bowed her head to watch close as she pulled out his dick, curls tickling his stomach where his shirt had ridden up. Pursing her lips, she blew a stream of cold air straight over the head. Stiles choked, and all he got for his pain was her laughter. She ripped open the condom, rolling it on with practiced ease. It was bright pink with daisies. There was a joke right on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't _think_.

Then she was straddling his hips, one hand pressed against his chest as she lowered herself onto his dick. Any chance Stiles had of figuring out the joke exploded in a ball of glitter behind his eyes as her pussy enveloped him inch by slow inch. Her head threw back, eyelids fluttering as she rolled her hips, settling in. 

Stiles tried to get his heels braced to thrust, but Allison smacked his nose with two fingers. "Don't— do— anything," she ground out, squeezing down until he made a sound like a choking ostrich, the polar opposite of sexy. But it was all wet heat and tightness, a bit of friction that turned his brain to absolute mush, and he couldn't find a damn to give. 

Her foot slid off the couch to the floor as she leaned forward, planting both hands on his chest. She rose up, rocking before sinking down at a slightly different angle. Slowly, she started finding her rhythm, nearly growling as she bounced on him, wobbling a little. 

Tentative, Stiles grabbed her hips, balancing her. Allison flashed him a smile and ground down. One of her hands slipped between her legs to rub her clit. She rocked harder, hips rolling in an obscene figure that had him seeing stars. 

He focused on keeping her steady, not letting his grip waver even when his balls drew up. "Allison, I—" Stiles' nails dug in as he tried to make his mouth work for more than wordless moans and pants. "Slow down..."

"No." She shifted her wait forward and practically slammed down onto his dick. The tips of her fingers ground down on her clit, breath coming in little hitches. "Come on, Stiles, come _on_ , I'm almost..." 

Her body locked up around him, hair flying as she arched forward to bury her forehead in his chest. She kept working at him, rocking back and forth, precision strikes that ran straight to his balls. A squeeze of her cunt, and he was done. Stiles cried out, finding his brace and arching up instinctively. Allison slipped forward, then slid back again, riding him until he whined. Then she collapsed, back heaving with deep, desperate breaths. 

Coughing, Stiles spit a curl from his mouth. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders to pull her in closer. Her fingers tightened in the shirt he'd never gotten around to taking off. For a while, they just held on, making a little space just for them. Then his brain clicked over.

"Deflowering!" he shouted at the ceiling. "That was it! Deflowering!" 

Turning her head, Allison peeked at him through the mess of brown hair. She giggled, turning away to muffle it in his chest. It quickly ratcheted up into full blown laughter, her shoulders heaving until the sound was cut through with a choked sob. 

Stiles kissed the top of her head and held on.

* * *

After Allison ran out of tears and energy to cry them, they managed to migrate from the couch to the Scott-proof bunker that was the bed. Stiles figured it was only wisdom. Experience had shown that Scott seemed to have a sixth sense for nudity, and would always come visiting unannounced when there was plenty of it that he could have otherwise avoided just by staying home or knocking.

Plus, it was a nice bed. It was big, and soft, and had a lot of good memories. Okay, so there was a liberal scattering of fur, too, and they'd had to stitch up some stuffing. Relationships were about compromise.

The two of them curled up together on top of the blankets, mostly nude, Allison tucked under his chin in a way that was incredibly awkward and left his arm mostly numb. Stiles didn't say anything, though once she dozed off he did try to roll the shoulder around a bit to keep it from getting too bad. Hopefully it wouldn't lose all circulation and develop gangrene or something. That was not the disease he wanted to take him down.

Around two o'clock, his phone buzzed in his pocket. His pocket which was, unfortunately, still over by the couch. Stiles leaned over as far as he could without disturbing Allison, peering woefully at his abandoned clothing as it rattled around on the hardwood. He could have just gotten up to get it, probably. She would have understood. But she'd been _crying_ , and now she was asleep, and no way was Stiles fucking that up.

His phone buzzed three times in a half an hour. Allison's rang once, a cheery little jingle rising from the depths of her purse like Godzilla from Tokyo Harbor. Then they both were quiet for another hour before sounding off one last time and going ominously silent halfway through the usual blitz. 

She stirred against his chest, snuggling slightly downward. It shifted her weight off his arm, and the sudden rush of blood back into bits that had been immobilize sent his head spinning. "Mm?"

"Nothing," Stiles whispered between clenched teeth, flexing his fingers against her back. They still felt weird and stiff, but he was pretty sure they weren't going to fall off. "Go back to sleep." 

"Hm," Allison agreed peacefully, turning her head to hide her face. She sighed softly, shoulders rounding back out into sleep. 

It was just in time. The tingling Hell was already making its way down Stiles' bicep, spreading across his muscles and into his elbow. He threw his head back and gritted his teeth, struggling not to wiggle around. Stiles had been through a lot of horrible shit, but of the stuff that wasn't actually trying to kill him, limbs falling asleep had to be the worst.

Just when Stiles' arm had started to come back to feeling like it belonged to a human instead of a pot roast, the front door to the loft banged open. Roughly half a second later, Stiles found himself slammed face-down onto the floor. Allison crouched over him, feet planted on either side of his hips. A knife glinted in the corner of his eye, and Stiles had no idea where she'd been hiding it.

One of the screens pushed aside on it's little track. Then Derek was there with sweat-damp scrubs and a wild-eyed expression that quickly morphed into bewilderment and then, more familiarly, annoyance. "What's wrong? Why didn't you... Allison?" 

She didn't move at first. Stiles could hear her breathing, too heavy and fast. The hand without the knife clenched around the back of his neck, keeping him down.

"Allison," Stiles repeated softly. He couldn't turn his head enough to see her, but he thought her hand loosened a little. "Allison, it's okay. It's just Derek. It's _okay_." 

Slowly, the knife lowered, finally dropping to the ground with a clatter of razor-sharp metal. Allison shuddered and dropped to her knees, then rolled over to clutch them instead, putting her back to the bed. "Sorry," she mumbled into her kneecaps. "I don't know— you startled me, and I thought— I'm sorry." 

Stiles scrambled up, settling in beside her with an arm over her shoulders. "Don't worry about it." 

Two worried eyes peeked over her forearms. "You're okay?"

He gave her a little grin and squeezed her arm. "If falling on my face hurt, I'd have spent most of my childhood laid up in the hospital. I'm peachy." 

Emotions flickered across Derek's face before settling into a carefully controlled blank slate. Moving slowly, he settled down on Allison's other side, crossing his arm over Stiles' so they had her from both ends.

"Are _you_ okay?" Derek asked softly. "Boyd called the hospital and said I should come home, and Stiles' text said there was news. Is— is the baby okay..?" 

Allison's shoulders hunched up at the same time that Stiles winced. They shared a guilty look over her forearms. Then Allison shook her head and hid her face, this time in Stiles' shoulder. 

Stiles sighed and wrapped his arm to pet her hair, even though it made his forearm feel like it was trying to catch fire. He knew when he was being set up, but knowing had never stopped him from falling for it. 

"They're— it's— everything's probably fine," he explained to Derek's annoyingly non-existent expression. "Okay, stick with me. There's two pieces of news. Not _bad news_. Just news. Complicated news. You ready?" 

For just a second, Derek's mask cracked, and the asshole Stiles knew and was kind of fond of peeked through. "Just tell me."

Just in case Allison wanted to steal his thunder again, Stiles waited a beat. This time, though, she stayed quiet, still not looking at anyone, and he plunged forward. "First, it's not the baby, or a baby. It's babies. Triplets." 

The news processed through Derek's expression in flickers, from surprise to worry to nodding acceptance in under three seconds. "Triplets. Okay. That's— surprising, but.... Triplets." His adam's apple bobbled as he swallowed. "What else? You said it's not bad."

"Not bad!" Stiles held up his free hand, the one that wasn't currently breaking in two to brush back Allison's hair. "Not bad, just—" His whole face twisted in on itself. "Look, there's no way to break it easily. Allison's having our puppies."

At first, nothing. No scowl, no stammering, no fainting (and Stiles was kind of hoping for fainting, because he really was a terrible person at heart). Then Derek just huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes. "Real funny. This isn't something to joke about, Stiles. I was worried."

Stiles flailed back indignantly, jostling Allison from her spot. "Who's joking? I'm being serious!"

No one did sarcasm like Derek's eyebrows. The rest of Derek's face tried to keep up, but the eyebrows stole the show. "Of course you are. Did they have tails, too?"

"Kind of? Two of them did."

"He's telling the truth, Derek." Allison was still curled up, and her eyes looked a little extra puffy. Her voice was firm, though, even if her jaw tremble a bit. "We saw it on the ultrasounds."

"Two of them definitely looked kind of wolfy," Stiles put in. He rubbed between Allison's shoulder blades. She was all knotted up in the bad way. "There was a whole thing in the parking lot about it, which— um, Chris was there and saw everything. FYI you might want to start carrying mace. Sorry."

As he watched, Derek's eyebrows flattened from amused asshole to confused asshole, which was at least a different shade of asshole. "That's impossible. That's—Look, there has to be some mistake. You read the ultrasound wrong or something." 

Both Stiles and Allison glared at him so hard that he should have, by rights, turned into a small pile of barbecue werewolf, lean cut. 

As usual, Derek didn't back down. "Fine. We'll go see Deaton tomorrow, and he'll tell you. That's the kind of crap kids tell each other about sex before they know what they're talking about. It's not real."

* * *

"Oh no, it's quite real," Deaton said casually, not even looking up from gooping up Allison's stomach. "It's incredibly rare, but not at all impossible." 

Allison was stretched out on a table meant to hold large dogs, which was still way too small for human people. Her head rested back against Stiles stomach, and he had her left hand squeezed between both of his own while Derek held on to her right. It was awkward, but it gave Stiles a perfect spot to watch Derek's face as the news sunk in. His eyebrows twisted and his jaw worked like he was being forced to chew an old gym sock. It was _beautiful_.

"But it doesn't work that way," Derek argued, in the sort of voice usually reserved for villains declaring their immortality, right before the hero took them down. "It just doesn't! Even if they're werewolves, they'd only be betas. It's impossible." 

Deaton was a better person than Stiles, because he didn't even look smug as he said, "I assure you, it's possible." 

Stiles barely resist the urge to stick his tongue out at Derek. He only managed it because he was on Hand Holding and Back Rest duty, which meant that he wouldn't be able to dodge in time if Derek decided to grab his tongue. It had happened once before, and the bruise had made straws suck for about a week. 

Opposite the table, Derek's face went all twitchy and dark, making him look like he wanted to bite something. And not in the werewolf way, or in the sexy way. In the maiming and pain and permanent death sort of way. "Allison said her family has— books. Experiments."

And just like that, Stiles' urge to joke was extinguished. He shared a look with Allison, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere else just then. 

Anyone else would have flinched at the implications of the word _experiments_ , but Deaton just hummed in that way he had and kept on working. The goop—coupling agent, Stiles owed Google a kiss—was thick as a sheet of jello before Deaton finally looked up and gave Derek the Sarcastic Eyebrows. "In a pregnant werewolf female, the fetus typically mirrors its mother's current form no matter what shape the original act took place in, and alpha females often choose to give birth while shifted. I imagine the Argents kept a female alpha in full-turn for containment purposes during their experiments. That would have skewed their data." He turned his back to them for a second, pulling over the ultrasound machine on its squeaky wheels and flipping on the screen. "This sort of circumstance requires a human female who is impregnated by an alpha male in full-turn. Quite a specific, rather uncommon set of events."

Which was a very casual way of saying that Deaton knew exactly how they'd been boning. Somehow, it was so much worse than Chris knowing. Chris was, in a lot of ways, still The Enemy, and it didn't matter what he knew because he would probably always be wrong anyway. Deaton was a friendly, nonjudgmental mentor-type person who could be thinking anything at all behind his calm face. 

"Well," Stiles said on automatic, brain desperately back-peddling from the realization, "I guess this means Allison tops from now on." 

A beat. No one said anything. Stiles felt his face start to heat up like he'd traded in his blood for Tabasco sauce. Derek closed his eyes. Allison looked three seconds from pulling the knife she'd tucked into her boot that morning. At that point, Stiles might have welcomed it. 

Deaton, bless—or curse—him didn't laugh. "Or you could use condoms. I hear those are relatively effective, even in the face of most magic and biology." 

Then he was coming around with the ultrasound wand, and Stiles forced himself to stop thinking about hiding under the exam table to squeeze Allison's hand. 

"I assume your doctor yesterday explained how this works, so I'm just going to get started, all right?" 

"Yes! Please, let's just get this over with." Allison's nails bit into the back of Stiles' hand. Punishment or nerves, he wasn't really sure. He bore it like the pitiful human that he was, with a lot of wincing and teeth grinding behind her back where she couldn't see.

Thank God, Deaton did what he said he was going to do and got to work. All of them locked eyes on the little screen as it came to life, the same black-and-gray image from the day before fuzzing into existence. Deaton hummed to himself, moving the wand almost idly. Stiles couldn't figure out what he was doing, but the image sharpened even more, bringing the three little mostly-not-jellybeans better focus. 

After a few minutes, Deaton nodded and said, "Your suspicions were absolutely correct. See here." One of his fingers came up to trace a circle across the screen around where Stiles sort of thought a head might be on one of the ones with tails. "The line of the jaw is definitely indicative of a full-turn fetus. Compare to this one." The finger moved over to the third one, which was all the way to the far left, like the two with tails were shunning it. "There's no spinal extension or curvature, the head is much larger and rounder, and you can even see the joints are forming in a distinctly bipedal manner." 

Allison took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. Her nails in Stiles' skin eased up, leaving little crescent divots that quickly bloomed red under his pasty whiteness. "So what does this mean? Is it safe?"

"Possibly safer than most multiples." Deaton pressed a few buttons, then started cleaning the gel off Allison's skin with a paper towel. "This confirms that at least two of the three are definitely werewolves, and I suspect the third will be by the time they're born, regardless of parentage." He switched out paper towels for baby wipes once the worst of the stuff was gone. "There are certain complications to human woman carrying werewolf children, but most of them are beneficial. As long as you take it easy, avoid major stressors, there shouldn't be any permanent effects."

"Permanent?" Derek sounded faint, and he was paler than Stiles. That was kind of a feat, since Stiles never needed to bother with makeup when he went as a ghost for Halloween. "What do you mean, permanent?"

The last of the goop was cleaned off. Stiles helped Allison pull down her shirt and sit up. Well, he tried. All she did was yank at him and Derek until they'd moved in together, then back up until her shoulders were pressed against them. "He means I could become a werewolf. Don't you?"

"It's unlikely." The nice, diplomatic bullshit smile was back. Stiles tried not to resent it, since he was pretty sure Deaton's face defaulted to that, but it was hard. "Think of lycanthropy as an infectious disease—a virus, if you will. Betas and omegas have a weakened form of the virus, while alphas have a very strong form. Under normal circumstances, a beta's weakened virus would not be able to overcome a human immune system."

Realization smacked Stiles with a baseball bat. "But she's going to be hooked directly into a werewolf for nine straight months," he blurted out. "Prolonged, direct exposure."

Surprise broke through Deaton's expression, which morphed quickly into Proud Teacher. "Exactly. Lycanthropy isn't strictly biological, though, so it's not quite that simple. Stay for a moment." Before any of them could say anything, Deaton was stripping off his gloves and vanishing into a back office.

None of them looked each other in the eye while they waited, or even spoke. Stiles barely could breathe. He'd known that there were bound to be complications. Werewolves were never without complications, it was sort of their shtick.

He was never, ever going to have sex without a condom again. 

After long enough that Allison started to fidget like she was going to make another run for the door, Deaton came back with a sheaf of computer printouts and, surprisingly, a handful of pamphlets. "When I heard the news from Scott, I took the liberty of putting a few things together—historical cases, what to expect, tips for handling the effects, that sort of thing." He spread it all out on one of the little side tables on wheels. "This shouldn't be too different from a typical human-werewolf pregnancy. You're going to experience mild to severe symptoms of lycanthropy. Mood swings, cravings, heightened senses—"

"So, pregnancy," Allison cut in, making a face. "Thanks, I already knew all of that." 

"It's a little more severe than the usual symptoms, but yes, like pregnancy," he actually laughed. It was kind of spooky. Stiles hadn't known Deaton could laugh. "You'll want to take it easy for the full moon, and make sure you have a plan for future moons. Most of these symptoms are temporary. They'll fade a few months after you give birth. The ones most likely to linger will be a faster metabolism and slightly enhanced healing. Nothing you'll need to worry over." Deaton handed the print outs to Allison in little stacks. Stiles read over her shoulder, skimming as fast as he could. Most of it was history stuff, with a few bits of werewolf culture Stiles hoped he'd get to grill Derek on later. Nothing seemed to indicate imminent death for anyone, which was always good news. "In order to ensure that they _are_ temporary, most anything that might cause a newly bitten beta to lose control should be considered strictly off-limits. No sports, avoid unfamiliar packs, that sort of thing."

"Um." Allison glanced back at them, slowly turning bright red across her cheeks. "What about sex? I heard that it's healthy and..." She squirmed uncomfortably. "You know." 

Stiles bit his lip to keep from commenting; he'd already humiliated himself enough times that day. Surprisingly, Derek looked more stoic, like he'd passed some horrified humiliation event horizon and was in the nothingness beyond. 

"Sex isn't quite the same thing in terms of lycathropy," Deaton said, and they all let out the breaths they'd been holding. "You're going to mostly want to avoid situations that might involve anger or fear. Fight or flight responses, specifically."

It was the pamphlets' turn to be spread out. They were bright and glossy, all full of heavily pregnant women in pastels smiling for the camera while they did things like walk in the park or paint or go swimming. He laid the last one on top like it was a holy relic and looked up with a smile. 

"Have you considered taking up yoga?"

* * *

The passenger door to the Camaro slammed shut with a clang of metal on metal. "The first one of you to suggest I not go back to school sleeps on the floor," Allison announced loudly. The snaps of the seatbelt sounded, little revolver clicks of threat. "I'm going back to school."

Stiles snapped his mouth shut and focused on buckling himself into the backseat. He hadn't actually been intended to say that—even if he'd thought it was a good idea, he knew better than to even begin to suggest it. 

Derek must have been thinking the same thing Stiles was, because he just nodded and settled into the driver's seat. He took his time adjusting mirrors, playing with the angle of the seat back. The car started with a soft purr of thoroughly maintained parts, but didn't actually move out of park. "Your education is important," he agreed mildly. 

"It's one more semester, and I'm not due until February," Allison continued, clearly willing to argue with herself if they weren't going to provide. The set of her shoulders said she was spoiling for a fight. They were tense and vibrating, sharper than Stiles had seen them since the last time she'd had a gun to someone's head. "I can take online classes next summer to make up most of the credits. It'll be fine. School's not that stressful."

"Right," Stiles agreed, fingers crossed behind his back. He tried not to remember the last-second study sessions that lasted to the crack of dawn before finals, or the caffeine-fueled benders that were major assignments. "And Scott and I'll be there to help keep things stress-free." 

"Right." Allison's shoulders had started to rise and fall sharply in little heaves. The silver decoration on her shirt twinkled in the late morning sunlight. "I can do this. No stress. No fighting. I'm not going to... to..." 

Stiles couldn't see her face, but Derek was starting to edge his way over the center console, looking alarmed. Hurriedly, Stiles unbuckled himself and squirmed over the back of the front passenger seat, wrapping his arms around Allison's shoulders just as she started to slump forward. He got there in time to knock heads with Derek, who'd been working on exactly the same wavelength. 

She clutched at them, gasping for breath desperately, her face scrunched up tight, turning red. Stiles' back pressed hard against the roof of the car, and the light fixture was going to leave a nasty bruise on his shoulder blade, but he held. He could feel her trembling against his chest, holding back tears.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" Allison choked out, bowing her head forward, hiding behind the loose fall of her hair. "I don't know what's— I just... I don't know."

"It's okay," Derek murmured, reaching around Stiles to stroke her arm soothingly. Stiles hummed and nodded, revising his opinion of the Professional Nurse Face. At least until Derek said, "You don't have to do this, you know. There's still—" 

" _No_!"

Her elbow lashed out, catching Derek in the rib, and Stiles could have sworn he heard bone crack. 

Allison's anger melted away immediately, leaving her pliant and horrified in Stiles' arms. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! I didn't—" 

"It's okay, I'm fine. I'm fine." One of Derek's hands rubbed over his chest where the elbow had connected. In anyone else, it probably wouldn't be fine, but it only took Derek a few seconds before he was straightening up and breathing normally again. 

Stiles took the chance to slide over and perch on the center console, making himself a human barrier between them. A squishy, breakable human barrier between a werewolf and a hunter. It wasn't actually one of his better ideas, in retrospect, but by the time he realized it he was already sliding his arm around their shoulders and planting his feet on the seats. 

"We've got three weeks until we go back to school," he reminded them, because focusing on numbers and probabilities and causes was always easier than dealing with emotions. Numbers could be manipulated a lot easier than feelings. "That's three weeks to figure everything out. Plenty of time."

"I can't go back to the dorms," Allison said, sounding a little more in control of herself. She took a few deep breaths, sitting up straighter and scrubbing at her face. "Even if they were— if this were just a normal pregnancy, I don't think I could handle that."

"I'll rent an apartment for you." Derek reached over again, but this time it was to settle his hand on Stiles' back, warm and broad and reassuring. Maybe it was an alpha thing, or a Derek thing, but Stiles felt himself relax, muscle by muscle. "Or a house, if that's better. You and Stiles can stay there. Scott, too. It'll be easier with pack. I'll fly out to visit when I can get time off. Melissa can help arrange my schedule."

A little laugh bubbled up out of Stiles' chest before he could swallow it down. "Melissa would take every one of your shifts if she could. She's been telling Scott it's her trial grandchild."

Almost imperceptibly, a smile started to twist at Allison's mouth. "She's really been helpful with everything." Just as quickly, her proto-smile vanished, and she sank down in the seat. "Do you think... it'll happen? That I'll turn?" 

Stiles didn't have to be a mind-reader to know that she was thinking about her parents. God knew he'd been thinking about his, and he'd caught Derek doing the thousand-yard stare thing more than a few times. They all had their ghosts. At least none of his had gone the way of Victoria Argent. 

"Deaton said if we're careful, you'll be fine," Derek said firmly, a little bit of alpha creeping into his voice. It made the hair on Stiles' arms stand up. "And if you do turn, your pack will be here for you." 

"But it's not going to come to that because we're going to be super, duper, extra careful. Right?" Stiles squeezed both of their shoulders, digging his nails into Derek where Allison couldn't see it. They were short and stubby, but he ground them in good and hard. "Derek?" 

From the way Derek flinched, Stiles' nails had hit their point. He smiled, showing too many teeth for comfort, because sometimes Derek forgot how to make people-expressions. "Right. We won't let it happen."

Allison eyed them both. She opened her mouth, paused, then closed it and sighed. Her head thumped back against the headrest. "I hope you're right."

* * *

Allison, we need to talk. Please come over for lunch. Bring Derek and Stiles. 

A beep, and then, _End of new messages_. 

Stiles, Derek and Allison sat in a circle on the bed and stared mistrustfully at Allison's phone as she passed it back and forth between her hands like a hot potato. The message from Chris Argent had been waiting for them when they'd gotten home—the missed call was timestamped right in the middle of when Deaton had been getting way too enthusiastic about pregnancy yoga and the awesome powers of meditation, which explained how they'd missed it. 

"I don't think you should come with me," Allison said finally. 

"You think he'd try to hurt us?" Stiles grabbed the phone before she could drop it, slipping it into her purse by her knee. They'd need that voicemail for evidence, if the worst happened. It was not a happy thought to have when considering his future father-in-not-quite-law. "Because if you think that, then you shouldn't—"

"No, no, no," she said hurriedly. "But I think that having you two there would only make things harder for him."

A series of uncomfortable looks went around, Derek's usual Constipated By Emotions face meeting Stiles' grimace and Allison's set jaw. Stiles' first instinct was to throw himself on Allison's lap and beg her not to go, because functioning testicles or not, he was secretly six. But she had that look on her face that said there was something she needed to do. It was the only thing that kept him still. 

"Remember what Deaton said about no violence." Derek reached over to grip her knee. "If you have to, tell him everything." 

Stiles winced, but Allison just nodded, putting her hand on his. "Thank you. You two will be okay without me?" 

"What, do we look like two guys who can't take care of themselves?" Stiles asked, then immediately caught himself. "Don't answer that."

Allison giggled. Leaning over, she smacked a kiss to his cheek before twisting herself off the bed. Her bare feet hit the floor with a soft little smack and a shuffle as she toed up her discarded shoes. "It's almost noon. I'd better get going."

Derek was already in motion, grabbing up his own shoes from the floor. "I'll drive you."

"You don't—"

"I want to run some errands and check on Erica and Boyd." He kept his head down as he tied on his shoes. "Please?"

Stiles winced. It was the tactical nuke of Derek-to-Other warfare. _Please_. 

Resistance crumbled out of Allison's expression and fell into the vast ocean of issues that they all swam in. "Sure."

To break the mounting tension, Stiles flopped backwards onto the bed, spread-eagle. "I'll hold down the bed, make sure it doesn't fly away like Chitty Chity Bang Bang." Both of them turned to give him a confused look. All he could do was flail at them, knocking one of the extra pillows to the ground. "Neither of you have seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks? Disney heathens."

"I'm sure you'll make us watch it eventually," Derek sighed, dropping a quick kiss to Stiles' lips before grabbing his keys off the bedside table. Then he grabbed Stiles' book and dropped it onto his face. "Here, read your trashy sci fi. Call if you need anything while we're out." 

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Stiles grabbed the book before it could get even more broken and snuggled down into the bed a little more, wallowing until he had the start of a comfortable nest to watch as Derek slung his arm around Allison's waist to escort her out the door. "Drive safe. Don't kill anyone!" The door closed and Stiles said quietly, just for Derek's ears, "Keep her safe."

And then it was just him and the vast, empty loft.

He rolled around in the bed some more, just because he could, but then he realized he could smell Derek's aftershave on Allison's pillow and then it just got depressing. Alone used to be a thing he could do. He wondered what had happened. 

Twisting and groaning, Stiles kicked himself around, rolling over to get comfortable on his stomach before cracking open the book. He'd been slowly slogging through it for nearly a week, more out of stubbornness than out of curiosity. It wasn't really his sort of thing, but every now and then Allison would mention knowing how it ended and he had to act defensive just to keep up the joke.

Besides, he needed to find out what the hell the Comm officer was. He had a bet with himself that was worth opening night tickets for a movie he'd been dying to see.

An hour later, he wished he hadn't bothered. 

"What?" he shouted, fighting the urge to hurl the paperback at the wall. "Really? All of that, just to—too—of all the lazy, useless, self-serving, _stupid_ plot twists..." Stiles' fingers kept flipping forward automatically, just in case there was another last chunk of text, an epilogue, something to make it worth it. 

There wasn't. Instead, he just found a blank page with the words _Property of Claudia A. Kopanski_ written in a neat cursive on a stamped _ex libris_. She'd sketched a little skull and cross bones in for the dots on the "i"s. 

Anger at the terrible writing dropped away. The book tilted out of suddenly loose fingers, flopping onto the sheets in a mess of bent pages and cracked binding. 

Shaking a little, Stiles picked the book back up. It was still a terrible novel, but he held it more carefully, ran his fingers over the crumbling cover. He tried to picture his mother, flopped on a couch somewhere reading about space marines. Tried to picture her young as he was, maybe younger, wasting an afternoon in a book. Hair pulled up into that weird twist she'd liked, maybe still in her pajamas. Her whole life ahead of her.

Had she read it in his room? Was that how it got there? He couldn't imagine her reading it aloud—it was half inexplicably naked people and half bullshit science, but there were plenty of times she'd stayed by his bed that a trashy novel would have been nice. When he had the flu, or that time when Scott convinced him that clowns lived in the closet. 

Stiles' throat tightened as he smoothed out a bent page. It wasn't like he didn't have mementos of her. There were pictures, little figurines, all sorts of stuff that his dad had never been able to bring himself to put away. But one little piece of her had been hiding in his room the whole time, waiting to be found. A piece from before his father, or maybe from the short stretch between meeting his dad and getting married, it was impossible to say.

Old, familiar pain crept into his chest, a weight tugging his heart down and trying to drown it. It'd been there when he'd told his dad about Allison and Derek, that echo where a person should have been. It was there when Melissa gave Allison advice, filling in a hole that there should have been filled by three other women. And there he was, holding a piece of one of his mother from before his father, an inescapable reminder that there was a lifetime of advice he really needed and could never get. 

Suddenly the wide open space in the loft that had barely tolerable wasn't even that anymore. Stiles threw himself upright, shoving his feet into his sneakers and scribbling a note to Derek. Then he grabbed his keys off the side table and ran out the door.

* * *

The Beacon Hills Cemetery had changed in the last few years. Partly because there was a space issue caused by the sheer number of deaths going around, and partly because they'd added a wall and some decorative shrubs to keep "wildlife" out. The thing digging up bodies hadn't been a bear, but the city wasn't going to find that out any time soon.

Even with all the changes, Stiles knew his way around. It wasn't like they rearranged the bodies very often or anything. He visited a few times a year: major holidays, birthdays, whenever there was another round of supernaturally-caused funerals to attend. On Mother's Day Allison usually went with him so neither of them had to deal with the car ride back alone. It was one of the few things Scott didn't do with them. They'd tried at first, but it had just been too awkward for everyone. 

His was tucked away up in a corner, with a little plaque replacing the headstone that had been ruined in the Not Actually a Bear incident. The summer sun shined straight down, without even a tree or a convenient building to block it. Bending down, Stiles checked a patch of grass for fresh watering before sitting in his usual spot, right by the foot. There was a dip there that made him think it had been made for sitting. Or maybe he'd just sat there so much that he'd left an impression. 

Someone else had left a little purple bouquet of flowers, recently enough that they hadn't started to wilt in the heat. Stiles put his own by them, arranging the two bouquets so they leaned against each other. It was a cheap little thing of roses from the gas station down the street, but he didn't like showing up empty-handed.

"Hey Mom. Sorry it's been a while. It's kind of been a busy summer. Mermaids, you know." Stiles fidgeted, plucking at the grass and tying it into a knot. He wasn't really sure if his mother was actually listening, but he hoped not. With everything he'd seen, he didn't doubt that there was some kind of afterlife, and hanging around graveyards had to be the most boring version of it possible. No one deserved that kind of boredom. "I found your book. The one you left in my room. You kind of had horrible taste, just so you know. Horrible, raunchy taste, and I feel a thousand times more awkward about reading it now that I know it was yours.

The lump that had been in his throat since he'd seen her signature started to ease, just a little. Fresh air cleared his head, made it easier to think. It was funny, how dry his eyes felt. When he thought about her being gone anywhere else, it was a short trip to Snot City. But being with her was always calming. There was a finality in the cemetery that there wasn't anywhere else. 

Sighing, he dropped the knot of grass and picked up another one. "So, I guess Dad's probably already told you the news. Surprise, you're going to be a grandma. Triplets, at least two of them puppies, which Dad doesn't know yet so don't tell him.

"You already met Allison, but I'll bring Derek by one day." A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "He's all gruff and bite. But he's a big puppy, really, and—he'll take care of us. Me and Allison and the babies, I mean. You'd have hated him." 

"You really think she wouldn't like me?" 

"She didn't like eavesdroppers." Stiles leaned his head back until he could see Derek standing on the path behind him. There was a purple flower petal caught in the folds of his shirt, and his white sneakers had grass stains. "But I guess you've already met. Are you cheating on me with my mother?" 

Gravel crunched, and Derek slipped in closer, until Stiles was comfortably covered by his shadow. "The city buried Laura here when I couldn't get a permit to bury her by the house. I come by every Friday."

Stiles winced. "Sorry about that." 

Derek shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. Sweat had started to collect on the back of his neck, dripping down to leave a spreading patch of dark blue around his collar. "She was too gone to care. It wouldn't have made a difference."

"It would have to you." 

Another shrug. Derek shuffled in closer, crouching down but not sitting, folding his arms over his knees, then letting them hang to the ground before just folding them again. "Are you okay?" He kept his eyes on the plaque, but it was obvious he wasn't talking to Stiles' mom.

The word _fine_ started to roll off Stiles' tongue, but he caught it before it did, really thinking it over before letting himself nod. "Mostly. Just kind of overwhelmed, I guess. Needed some space, figured I wouldn't be found here."

No sooner were the words said than Derek started to pull away. "I can—"

Stiles reached out and snagged a handful of his shirt. "It's okay. I'm not that bad." 

Derek eyed him, but settled down again. "If it's not that bad, then why are you out here?"

Answering that took a little extra work. Words that had been easy before, when it was just him and a chunk of dirt, dried up and withered. He didn't want to talk to Derek about his mom. Not that Derek wouldn't understand, but because he would. Maybe too much. Neither of them needed that just then.

So Stiles chewed his thoughts over while the sun heated his back and sweat started soaking through his clothes. "I never thought I'd leave home," he finally said, leaning in to push his shoulder against Derek's. "Didn't even want to. I just sort of assumed I'd go home after I finished college. Dad needs someone to take care of him. It was just easier that way."

"You could have stayed there, you know." Derek still wasn't looking at him, not directly, but Stiles could see the faint movement of his eyes as he tried not to. Otherwise, his face stayed absolutely the same, without so much as a tick of annoyance, which was how Stiles knew whatever he was about to say was self-sacrificing bullshit. "Allison and I wouldn't have—"

But Stiles was already shaking his head. "You don't get it. I want it. I want— everything, okay? It's new and terrifying, and we're probably all going to be eaten by a giant praying mantis sometime in the next few years and my Dad'll have to raise our kids with Scott and Melissa and Chris Argent and that's going to go to Hell but..." A lump had settled in Stiles' throat, and swallowing didn't do enough to make it go away. "But I want it. And it's kind of freaking me out how much I do." 

A tiny wrinkle appeared between Derek's eyebrows, which Stiles took as a sign that he'd forgotten to be noble, or at least didn't think it was necessary anymore. "So you're upset because you're happy?"

Stiles shrugged. "Didn't say it made sense."

Derek snorted and finally settled down onto the grass. His knee bumped Stiles' bare shin, the denim soft and sun-warm, but he didn't get any closer. It was too hot for that, even for werewolves. "So why are you here, then?"

"We had something to talk about. And I figured she might... I don't know. Rub off on me, I guess." He indicated his mother's name plaque with a jerk of his chin. "You know she went from single to married to my dad in less than two months?" 

A small, almost imperceptible smile tugged at Derek's mouth. "Did she?"

"Mmhm. Dad said they'd been dating, and she just stopped going home one day. A week later, they were at the JP's office. He used to say that he'd spent the next month getting himself tested for narcotics." Stiles leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. "I never thought I was brave like her, but this is kind of like that, isn't it?"

"I don't think we're going to be able to get married." But Derek's smile was starting to get bigger, softer. It was the smile Stiles liked, the one he had when they were alone and nothing was really happening. Not a sex smile, just a happy one. "We should probably check with some lawyers, though."

"Yeah, something like that." The sun was just starting to slip to the top edge of the woods. It wouldn't actually set for a while yet, but the shadows were stretching. "It's late. We should get back to—" Stiles' tongue tripped to a stop. He licked his lips and corrected himself. "We should go home." 

Derek gave him a hard look, but stood and offered Stiles a hand up. They pulled together, werewolf muscles doing most of the work to get Stiles back on his feet. He didn't let go of Stiles' hand as they started back down the gravel path to where the Jeep was parked.

* * *

Home turned out to be the second stop. About halfway there, Derek got a text from Allison, resulting in a quick about face and drive back to the other side of town. 

When they reached Casa d'Torture, Allison was sitting on the porch, legs criss-crossed, a wooden box in her lap. They'd barely stopped before she was climbing into the passenger seat without even thanking Stiles for leaving it for her. Her arms wrapped tight around the box, clutching it to her chest so hard that her nails bent. 

In the rear view, Derek's expression was hard as he pulled back into traffic. Stiles tried to catch his eye, Derek's attention was entirely for the road, like he was pretending to be a conscientious driver instead of the wreck they all knew him to be. Allison wasn't any better, keeping her head down and her shoulders hunched. 

He gave them five minutes by the clock before shuffling forward on the seat to lean over Allison's shoulder, casually letting his fingertips brush her neck. Her shoulders came up some more, then slowly relaxed back down. _Success!_

"So what is it?" he asked, pretending the seatbelt wasn't cutting into his waist like a polyester knife. "Mountain ash stakes? Wolfsbane-growing kit? Lunar eclipse simulator?"

"A gun." 

"That was going to be my next guess." 

She gave him a wobbly smile before reaching in and pulling out a toy handgun. Or maybe it was a handgun the size of a toy. Her palm dwarfed it, and Allison was not a woman with large hands. When she turned it over, the handle gleamed with silver. 

"It's supposed to go in a purse, but there's a holster too," she explained, running her fingers over the barrel. "I guess he wants me to use it." 

Something about that set wrong. It took Stiles a second to wiggle it out of the back of his head. "Aren't you supposed to be twenty-one in California for concealed carry?" 

Allison rolled her head back to look at him with raised eyebrows. "Yes?" 

"Don't tell Dad then, right," Stiles nodded. Not that his dad wasn't used to hiding less than legal shenanigans these days, but the less he knew the safer. 

"You said he wants you to use it." Derek was very carefully not looking at the gun, though he had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. "On who?" 

"Humans. Hunters. The bullets are too small to hold wolfsbane." Swallowing, Allison put the gun back in the box, then carefully closed the lid. Her hands were shaking. "I'll be a target now, if they find out."

"They won't." Stiles reached over her shoulder to grab her hand, twisting their fingers together. "No one will tell them."

She didn't say anything, and from his angle Stiles couldn't see her face well enough to tell if there was something else _he_ should say. Derek's expression could have given Chris a run for his poker chips, so that was no help. 

They were just turning into the loft's complex when a sudden scrape of cracking wood made Stiles' balls jump up to hide in his body. Allison's free hand had curled on the box, leaving four long gashes in the wooden lid. "I'm not going to let them get to me. I have a pack. I have— I have a _family_." Her hand around Stiles' squeezed. Faintly, he could feel a prick of nails that he was certain hadn't been that sharp before, even though they didn't quite look like claws yet. "Right?" 

"Right," Derek repeated, sounding like he was close to choking on it. The Camaro jerked to a stop in its usual spot, but he didn't make a move to get out. "Family." 

Stiles could sympathize. The word settled heavy in his stomach, another thing he wasn't quite ready for but had to deal with. He buried his face in the back of the seat, where any escaped tears would get swallowed up. "Why don't we ask Scott if he wants to come over for the night? Erica and Boyd, too. We can make it a sleep over, watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Or Star Wars, if we can dig up a VHS player" 

The sharp points of Allison's faded back into the dull pressure that he was more used to. "A family night?" 

Stiles swallowed, and tried to pretend that the ache in his chest wasn't going to eat him alive. "Yeah. A family night."

* * *

"This wasn't want I had in mind. Are we sure this is still safe?"

"Shut up and lift, furface." Stiles did his part to keep the California king mattress from dragging as Derek carried most of the weight down the spiral staircase on his back. "I sprinkled it with fresh holy water. It'll be fine."

The loft was essentially one giant open space, which meant rearranging things on a whim was easy. Just then, the whim revolved around the two sets of mattresses that had been dropped in the middle of the room in front of the television, which was churning with a slowly bouncing bluray screen saver. The sofa had been positioned to be an impromptu headboard-slash-snack table that Allison filled with bowls holding enough snacks for werewolves and humans alike. 

"Left, leeeeft," Stiles guided, tugging a little. "I said left, you're going to—" 

"I can see just fine, Stiles, will you just— _ow_!" The lump of mattress hopped as Derek jabbed his shin into the coffee table. A giant bowl of chips rattled close to the edge.

Hurriedly, Stiles hopped over to nudge it back to safety with his foot. "Of course you can see. Now go left." Pointedly, he tugged again, and this time Derek followed without a complaint. Together they navigated around the coffee table and to its final destination on the second set of box springs. Combined, the two mattresses were big enough even for a pack of werewolves.

As soon as Derek was out of the way, Allison pounced, throwing herself into making the bed with a determined frenzy that had Stiles wincing. She threw down sheets and blankets, piling Derek's surprisingly numerous pillows high. Some of the blankets were obviously not Hale Loft originals—handmade quilts and soft, lacy throws, a couple things that looked like they'd been abandoned half-finished but had gotten used anyway. Definitely things that hadn't been purchased by Derek "I'll just end up bleeding on it anyway" Hale. Pillows were plumped like they were personally offending her and spread out the sheets with precision geometry. At one point, she even nudged Derek out of the way to tuck in a corner with the same fold-and-tuck system that Stiles' dad used. 

Stiles opened his mouth to comment, then slowly let it close. Avoidance had done him well for years, why change what worked? Instead he bent down to make a show of laying out potential movies on the foot of the bed in order of preference.

His only warning that someone was coming was when Derek suddenly looked at the door. A half a second later, it flung open and Erica was tackling him face-first to the bed. Bluray boxes scattered to the four corners. Two knees dug into his ribs, and breathing became a fond yet distant memory. Vision tunneled. Her boobs cradled the back of his neck, and Stiles had just enough awareness to realize how typical it was that he was going to die thinking of breasts. 

"You know, I get what Allison and Derek see in you," she said just a shade too cheerfully, planting a damp kiss to his temple. "You're pretty when you cry."

" _Erica_!" three different voices yelled at once. 

Behind him there was a scuffle, and then someone lifted her away. Sweet, sweet oxygen flooded back into Stiles' lungs. He coughed, rolling over to flop on his back. 

"Why?"

Scott and Boyd each had her by an elbow. She dangled limp between them in a mess of jeans and blond curls, absolutely no sign of repentance on her face. "You never called after the ultrasound," she snapped, baring her teeth. "Do you have any idea how worried we all were? This is our pack, too!"

"I _told_ you, they'll tell us when they're ready," Scott growled, letting go of his side. "You okay, Stiles?" 

"Yeah, just peachy," he wheezed, levering himself upright. Almost as soon as he'd spoken, Derek and Allison were on either side of him, wrenching up his shirt and grabbing his face to poke for bruises. Sighing, Stiles let himself be fussed over. If it would make them feel better, he didn't mind. There were some definite sore spots developing where Erica had planted her knees, but a quick flex suggested those were minor. She had too much control to risk Derek murdering her for actually hurting him. 

Boyd didn't let go of Erica's arm. He physically pulled her back out the door, not apparently caring that she was just dragging on the floor. "Come, help me get the coolers."

"I can tell her to leave," Derek murmured, rubbing at Stiles' jaw, no way quiet enough that Erica couldn't hear. 

"No, it's okay. Really." Stiles rolled his shoulders back into Allison's pokes and smiled to prove everything was okay. "I'll talk to her later, it'll be fine. We should tell them anyway."

"Um. You don't have to?" Scott crouched in front of the mattress and bounced from foot to foot, shifting his weight anxiously. His expression was a knotted mix of hope and forced patience. Behind him, Erica and Boyd were shuffling ice chests in. Boyd made a visible effort to look like he wasn't listening, but Erica had her head turned to watch. 

It struck Stiles suddenly that Scott _didn't know_. That he'd forgotten to tell him, and Scott had just let it happen and didn't even question it. For the first time in years there was something in Stiles' life that didn't automatically include Scott. The glue at their hips had come unstuck, just a little. 

His heart must have done something strange because all the werewolves were staring. One of Derek's hands wrapped around his, squeezing gently. It was enough for Stiles to manage to say, "I don't see why not, unless we're going to make it a surprise or something. There could be balloons. A creepy clown." 

"No surprises, no balloons, _no clowns_ ," Allison said, and that basically guaranteed that there would be a clown somewhere in their future. Her arms slid around Stiles' waist from behind, her chin propped up on his shoulder. "I'm having triplets. The ultrasound confirmed it."

"At least two wolves," Derek added, because of course he would. "Deaton thought the third one would be, too."

Scott's expression went tight with alarm, his back rigid. Gold glinted in his eyes as he looked from Derek to Stiles to Allison and back again, never settling for long. "There's something else, isn't there?" he asked quietly. "I can tell something's wrong."

Allison's breath hissed in Stiles' ear, her hands clenching in his shirt. He went to wrap his hand over Allison's and found Derek's already there. "Yeah," Stiles said, then rushed on before Scott could get even more upset. "The babies are going to be fine. But you know, werewolf pregnancy. It's complicated, dude."

"But _you'll_ be okay, right?" The little shifts in Scott's weight was slowly moving him in closer and closer to the mattress. He didn't seem to notice, eyes locked on Allison now. "Can I help?"

"You can watch a movie with us?" Allison asked, her voice quiet and surprisingly fragile-sounding. "We'll explain later, I promise. I just— I don't want to think about it right now." 

There was a long moment of silence, sharp with tension. Then Scott pounced. He was a lot more careful than Erica had been, wrapping his arms wide and shoving them all back to the bed without putting any weight behind it. They went over with Allison's surprised laugh ringing in Stiles' ear. He twisted around so she wouldn't be crushed, tangling them all together. 

The bed bounced, and then Boyd and Erica stopped pretending they weren't there and wrapped themselves up in the pile. Bare toes curled around Stiles' calves, and Boyd's arm tucked around his chests while Scott became part-blanket part-body pillow. There was a general, happy werewolf grumble that came from too many throats for Stiles to identify them all. except for the one that was definitely coming from Derek's face in his armpit.

They stayed curled together for a while, long enough for Stiles to finish relaxing for what felt like the first time in days. It was a little too warm and there was an indy flick leaving its mark in his hip, but he was at ease in a way that went beyond Boyd's surprisingly comfortable abs. 

"Everyone good?" he asked, nosing some of Scott's curls aside so he didn't accidentally swallow them. Knowing their luck, he'd probably get possessed by the ghost of hair spray past or something. 

"Yeah," Allison said, burrowing down deeper into the pile. "I think this is good."


End file.
